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Ember Wights - Culture, Places, and Technology
Imagine a universe without matter where everything that exists is energy. This includes time, which is also a form of energy. In fact, space itself here is energy. But this energy is not "energy" as we know it, it is the stuff of souls, a magical spiritual energy. After all, this is a fantasy novel. As to what spiritual energy is, we can simply define it as "the material the soul is made out of." It exists within ordinary matter in standard realities, and there it is the stuff of the ethereal realm and ghosts. But within the realm of the Ember Wight realities, it is everything. Nothing else exists there save time and space, which both operate according to rules established by the physics of this unreal environment. In this spiritual realm, spiritual energy coalesces due to rules similar but different to the ones we think of as gravity. Just as stars develop in standard realities, so too do they come into being within this bizzare unreal reality. Spritual energy collects, condenses to super-dense amounts, and eventually performs this realities version of fusion, bursting to life by producing energies of its own. This is the beginning of a Wight. And in this realm, all individual life forms exist as spiritual mentalities on the surface of these Wights. As time passes, these mentalities grow, develop, and become greater intellects. Achu Bon explains the Ember Wights thusly: "Not all realms are filled with matter as we know it. Some are purely spiritual places filled with energy. Physics, you know, can differ radically from realm to realm. Ember Wights come from realms where there is no physical life or matter as we know it. In those places, there are stellar entities – like stars if you want to think of them that way – on which essences of life exist. But those stellar entities still have a life cycle. They burn energy in their interiors that keeps the structure inflated just like our stars burn matter. Eventually, after trillions of epochs, they run out of power and collapse. When that happens, all the memories and individual personalities of all the essences that have dwelled upon them become compressed into an ember. Like a singularity, but not one of matter. They are spiritual singularities, an elemental essence of the mind. "The only known mapped realm where such things exist is Calibius. I can’t be sure if that’s where this one came from, but it’s the only point of reference I have. Calibius is an extremely white realm, and calibian ember wights are typically good creatures with vastly expanded intellects. In their own reality, they move from place to place, starting new life, managing stellar fields, and basically imposing their personal opinions and beliefs on the others. They’re like shepherds, tending their flock and helping them grow into new ember wights. In their own realm, they’re something like Gods. For the Drow, a calibian ember wight would be a vast source of strange knowledge perfect for learning how to manipulate necromantic forces.” Of course, what Achu Bon didn't realize was that Ember Wights also exist in dark outer realms - places of terror and horror beyond human imagination. And in these realities, the essence of everything corrupt and dark is a valued form of power and fuel. Where Calibian Ember Wights are a force for good, these Dark Ember Wights are a force for evil. They consume evil, rely on it for fuel. Composed of uncountable numbers of life forms, they dominate all that exists within them, tormenting it endlessly and harvesting that torment as power.